Same here, voted for in both parliamentary and council elections today...

Best of a bad bunch to be honest... I was hoping to see a Monster Raving Loony or Church of the Militant Elvis Party candidate (see links below), but alas, only Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or (spit!) Veritas...

Only 3 hours left to vote folks... if you haven't voted get your skates on. If you think none of them are worth voting for, don't just abstain, get down there and say so on the ballot paper. If you don't vote, you have no right to complain if you don't like the outcome...

With a predicted final majority of just 66 votes, it would take 33 rebels within his own party to make Blair's life difficult, i.e. in pushing legislation through Parliament. Blair has always had thumping majorities with which to pursue his plans, he now has to accommodate both wings of his party, which has been heavily divided on certain issues in the last couple of years. He now has to mediate between these in order to get the legislation he wants passed through the House of Commons.

The commentators here are saying that it's likely that Blair will begin the transition to new leadership of the Labour Party within the next 18 months to 2 years, most likely to the Chancellor Gordon Brown. In the British system, the Prime Minister is simply one member of the party in government. It is therefore in the power of that party to change their leader at any time and thus replace the sitting Prime Minister. This would not require a new election. It happened when the Conservatives replaced Margaret Thatcher as party leader in 1990 and John Major took over as both party leader and Prime Minister.

We've already seen the Tory leader Michael Howard announce that he is going to stand down as Conservative leader in the near future. I think within the next year or so, we'll see Blair repositioning himself to do likewise.

The overall swing of the vote from Labour to Conservative stands at 3.2%, but this masks the real story of this election which was the tactical vote switching in many constituencies. There was also a general trend in voting in the safe Labour seats of disaffected Labour supporters giving their vote to the Liberal Democrats, with swings from Labour to Lib Dem of over 10% in some areas.

Prediction remains that Labour will have an overall majority of 66 in the House of Commons.